


An Odor of Roses

by fannishliss



Series: Kink List [27]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dissociation, Guro, Kinktober 2018, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sad with a Happy Ending, Wakanda (Marvel), Wakandan therapy, explicit descriptions of terrible things that Hydra did to Bucky, kink list, mental health, this is after Thanos is defeated and the dead are brought back, torture (remembered)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 02:26:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16296503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: Bucky's lived so many nightmares.  Now, with Steve beside him, it's time to wake up.





	An Odor of Roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jo (jmathieson)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmathieson/gifts).



> In celebration of Kinktober, I wanted to write a few stories from my kink list, stories that I've been blocked from writing for a long time. So here is the first, and hardest to wrap my muse around. 
> 
> Guro: gore treated as erotic. I thought this was a pretty extreme kink until I realized it is the basis of thousands of words worth of how Hydra treated Bucky.  so.  here is the fluffiest kink fill for guro anyone is ever likely to write.
> 
> This piece is dedicated to Jo (jmathiesen) because I discovered that she has a fantastic series of Clint/Phil stories that explore the different kinks in a similar project to mine. Her work helped me break through my block on guro, and that deserves a big THANK YOU.

 

James B. Barnes had not lived what anyone would call an easy life. 

 

Barnes had, in fact, been fucked over six ways to Sunday. Pretty much literally. 

 

Barnes was a mess, a steaming hot, raked over, shit-smelling mess, and the fact that he walked, sometimes talked, and fought like a fiend, couldn’t ever wash away the opposing fact that he was bits and pieces of charnel flesh, just roughly tacked together. 

 

In his mind, his every joint was loose, every organ had been opened out and examined by so-called scientists, and pieces of him were routinely cut off and timed as they grew back under various hardship conditions.How long would it take for the skin of his back to regrow if he were kept in a tank of saltwater? How long would it take for his liver to regenerate if he were restricted from fluids? How long would a shattered femur take to knit together if he were on one diet vs. another? 

 

Sometimes he pictured himself like Frankenstein’s monster, so many torn strips sutured together… and he hoped like hell he never got scurvy, because if all his scars ever let go he’d just pop open like an over ripe tomato. 

 

Barnes sometimes pondered, these days, the time and resources Hydra had put into finding his limits, and surpassing them.It was a lot of effort to go to just to brainwash a sniper, was Barnes’s opinion. Surely there were plenty of stealthy, accurate snipers. You didn’t need a robot left arm to steady a rifle.Okay, sure, he could jump off a four-story building, but was sneaking away on broken ankles really that big of a deal? 

 

Steve seemed to think so. 

 

Bucky (Steve preferred to call him Bucky) couldn’t imagine life without Steve, not since he got back from wherever Thanos had sent him and half of creation.He could remember being dead, like a bad dream that slips away even as the unease lingers, casting a pall over the best part of the day. 

 

Bucky had flickered back into existence, naked and lacking the arm Her Royal Highness had made for him, to have Steve collapse into his neck and hang there sobbing for the next half hour, while behind him, Sam Wilson shook his head, announced that some folks could really use pants, and left Steve’s Wakandan suite with more dignity than a pair Steve’s compression shorts probably deserved.

 

Life after death was pretty fucking weird, even though Bucky thought he should have been used to it. 

 

The princess and her engineering department gave him another new arm, but he left it in the box. 

 

Steve and the others who had been on the lam had gotten their official pardon while half the world was dust, but even though he was legal again Steve wasn’t so quick to want to move back to New York.Living in a royal palace in the most advanced nation in the world was okay by Steve, and since Bucky’s hut and his goats had been lost to nasty space dogs, Bucky lived there too. 

 

To be honest, Bucky was adrift.Death hadn’t really let go.Some times he looked at his own right hand and expected to see it rot and drop off. Eating was a chore, even with food prepared by the Wakandan royal chefs. Bucky was vegetarian now, and not by choice. Even the thought of meat put him off.Fruit smoothies as packed with calories and nutrition as science could make them were Bucky’s main diet.They should’ve tasted good, but Bucky didn’t care. 

 

It wasn’t that he was stuck in the Soul realm, or whatever people were calling it.He didn’t really remember it, just as the echo of a dream, a drab feeling, an emptiness.It was taking some time for him to get his feet back under him. 

 

Steve never quit, of course.When he was home, he had books to read, and art to go look at, and music to listen to, and every so often a play or a movie he wanted to take Bucky out to see. 

He tried to get Bucky to take him dancing, but Bucky kept slowing to a halt.His feet didn’t seem to work that way any more.

 

Sam was training with the Wakandan dream workers, learning to help people journey through their trauma.He put out a series of videos, showing how to use the guided meditations, the drumming, the mantras and the visualizations, so people could find some peace without having to hire a fully fledged dream worker. There were only so many qualified Wakandans to go around, and Sam, with their blessing, was helping spread the knowledge. 

 

Bucky wasn’t sure.The royal dream workers had done pretty well with the triggers, but that was when the Princess had the luxury of assigning a whole team of them, just to work on Bucky. 

 

Bucky made a stab at following Sam’s program.Maybe it helped, he couldn’t tell.He was a hell of a lot more traumatized than the average person.Trying to visualize was hard, when half a dream savannah was full of his victims and the other half the rapists and mutilators and would-be world dictators who’d had their fun with his healing factor over his decades controlled by Hydra. 

 

Without Steve, Bucky would’ve let go, and just drifted away.The countryside was coming back together, and he knew his way around a goat, what more did they want from him? 

 

Steve wanted a lot more.That was Steve up and down. 

 

Growing up with Steve, those memories, he could remember a lot of things now, but kind of through the haze of Hydra reprogramming.He remembered fighting for Steve, wanting to make Steve happy, and maybe it reminded him a little too much of how they made him comply with the handlers. 

 

There was a darkness in James Buchanan Barnes. Maybe it had always been there, in a boy with an angry drunk dad who fought for the approval of a tiny spitfire, a young man who devoted his life to taking care of his best friend without ever admitting to anyone the secret reasons why. A sergeant who’d follow his best friend into hell and die trying. 

 

Hydra had ferreted all that out, with torture and drugs and electrodes and tests.There was nothing their Soldier could hide away from them. 

 

Bucky caught Steve staring. Steve would blush and turn away.Steve wanted Bucky to spill all the secrets.Bucky hated spilling, and yet it was a relief. 

 

“I always loved you.” 

 

“I only fucked the skinny blonde girls who reminded me of you.” 

 

“Alexander Pierce was good at keeping the Asset in line because he looked a little bit familiar.” 

 

Because Steve still acted like he owed his life to the world, after all he had already given, he was on call three weeks out of four.Bucky would drop a little bombshell on the last day before Steve got on a quinjet, and Steve would frown and nod and then he’d be gone before dawn. 

 

And then Bucky would have three weeks to stew and ponder by himself and wonder what to tell Steve next. 

 

“Steve, I feel like I’m not really alive.” 

 

He broke pattern and told Steve the first day back. 

 

“Sure you’re alive. I mean, I’m not still seeing things am I?” 

 

Steve had seen Bucky through the veil, just like Tony could sometimes see that kid Peter, and once they admitted that fact to each other, they figured out what they were seeing was real, and it was a good lead on how to undo Thanos’s big plan.

 

Bucky couldn’t answer.He just stared at his right hand, turning it this way and that.It was his hand, it wasn’t like he felt like he needed to saw it off or anything. 

 

“Steve. Listen.” Bucky whispered. 

 

“Okay, Buck,” Steve said, and there was that frown. He sat down on the couch and put on his listening face. 

 

“Did you ever — did you ever have to grow something back?” Bucky whispered. 

 

It was awful, the most awful thing. Bucky’s stomach knotted up just thinking about it. 

 

Steve nodded, still frowning.“Internal organs mostly.Bullets, impacts.Bones of course.” 

 

“Yeah,” Bucky said faintly.“Teeth?” 

 

“Yeah, teeth,” Steve laughed. “Clint mocks me with some kind of Christmas song.”

 

“You know how many times they castrated me?” Bucky asked. 

 

Steve blanched, and swallowed.“Uh, I mean, I read the file, but I didn’t think…” 

 

“For a while it was standard procedure before cryo,” Bucky said.“Hose it down, emetics and enema, cut off the balls, cauterize, then into the tube.” 

 

“Jesus,” Steve breathed. 

 

“And then the chair, right out of cryo, before I could really stand, they’d drag me out and fry me clean of whatever might have come back while I was under.” 

 

Steve shook his head and wouldn’t let himself look away.Bucky kept going. 

 

“So they knew, when I started to scratch, that they were growing back and I’d start to be erratic.” 

 

“Shit,” Steve said. 

 

“I didn’t even know what they were,” Bucky said.“I was almost afraid of them.And, it hurt when they grew back, it was better when they were gone.” 

 

“Jesus, Bucky,” Steve said, squirming slightly on the couch. 

 

“I have balls now, Steve,” Bucky said drily.“Don’t piss yourself.I’m just trying to tell you… it’s like, sometimes something is missing, and you don’t know what it is, or how bad you want to try to get it back.” 

 

“What’s missing?” Steve whispered. 

 

“I thought you’d maybe try and help me find out…”Bucky said. 

 

“Whatever you need,” Steve swore. 

 

“You swear too fast,” Bucky said. “If we’re gonna do this, you need a leave of absence.Maybe a long one.Whatever this is, it’s gonna take time.” 

 

“Okay,” Steve said. “I’ll tell Tony.” 

 

“Okay then,” Bucky said, trying to feel something, anything more than a mild foreboding. 

 

True to his word, Steve called Tony that same day and told him he needed leave. 

 

Tony, surprisingly, did not argue.Tony had spent a while in space trying to get home, not knowing whether Pepper would be alive or dead when he got back.That kid Peter had dissolved in Tony’s arms.Shit like that, it did things to a guy.

 

“Take all the time you need, Steve,” Tony said, no joking at all. 

 

Sam Wilson didn’t have a lot of time to hang with Steve, but when he found out about Steve’sleave of absence, he rolled his eyes and said “FINALLY” and Bucky could hear the all caps. 

 

Sam put an end to the way Steve and Bucky had both neglected therapy, and delivered to them a short but effective rant: “Stark could’ve listened to me, when I told him you needed leave, but did he? No.And now he goes and give you the leave without hanging stipulations over your head.Well, let me tell you.I am here to stipulate!Any noobie counselor worth their salt would have seen this in a heartbeat.Do what I tell you, Steven.” 

 

Steve wouldn’t meet Sam’s glare; instead he just played with the hem of his shirt like he always did, muleheaded, sure he was right, despite the line up of facts. 

 

Sam gave Bucky a short questionnaire. 

 

Was Bucky in touch with his emotions? No. 

Did he feel flat? Yes. 

Did his body feel separate, alien, not part of him? Yes. 

Had he lost any time? No. 

 

“You’re experiencing a mild but pervasive dissociation,” Sam told Bucky.“When Hydra created the Winter Soldier, they used your own brain’s defenses against you, so you built a persona that could comply with their orders. That was dissociative identity disorder, and this is a little like that, but a lot easier to treat.” 

 

Steve looked alarmed when Bucky told him all this, like he was reciting the weather report. 

 

“So, you have multiple personalities?” Steve said, trying to be calm about it. 

 

“No, Sam said it’s just mild this time. He said I need to relearn how to be present in my body,and focus on everyday things — especially nice things.” 

 

Steve huffed a sigh of relief. “He wants us to go on vacation.” 

 

“I think he wants you to take me out on dates,” Bucky said evenly. 

 

“Start small,” Sam told Steve, “step by step.”

 

Bucky had lived through so many nightmares.  Now, with Steve beside him, it was time to wake up. 

 

Steve started small. Bucky didn’t really want to leave the suite; he had little motivation, expectations, or desire for a change of scene.So Steve had food brought in, something new each day. He made sure Bucky still took in plenty of nutrition with the smoothies, but he switched it up with Wakandan cuisine, which was spicy and delicious, even in small bites. 

 

Bucky’s stomach still turned, unpredictably, heaving everything out, but that happened less and less as time went by. With Steve, Bucky knew there’d be no cruel tricks, no poison, and slowly,Bucky learned to like eating again.

 

Steve would cut up something good, like a mango, and feed it to Bucky, bite after bite, and Bucky could enjoy it without fear or repercussions. 

 

Bucky could see the point of his body, while Steve was focused on his mouth like that, tempting him with delicious little tidbits. 

 

Steve even had some hybrid fruits flown in from California, something called “pluots” that were half plum, half apricot, better than anything Bucky had ever tasted. 

 

Bucky started looking forward to mealtimes again. 

 

Now that Steve was “on vacation”, he would sit with Bucky on the couch in the evenings, and they could slowly work their way through some show.Watching a couple of episodes a night was diverting and didn’t make their asses feel like lard, and that was good.They watched, and Steve would slowly sneak closer until they were touching, side by side, and Steve would make a big bowl of popcorn or order in that spicy Wakandan flatbread with the goat cheese on it, and if Bucky got a little sad when he thought about his goats, Sam just said that meant he was getting better. 

 

Steve and Bucky wandered through the markets, buying spices, incense, soap, little sachet packets of herbs for their bureau drawers— all kinds of sensory richness to tempt Bucky’s body and mind to respond. Steve picked things out but always let Bucky choose. 

 

“How about this massage oil,” Steve wanted to know. 

 

Bucky shivered a little.Massage.He didn’t know what to think about it. 

 

Steve held the oil under his nose.It smelled like roses, plain old roses, like the soap his ma bought for special back when he was a kid. 

 

“That’s real nice,” Bucky said, and Steve lit up, hearing Bucky’s old fashioned drawl come out. 

 

Bucky wondered what would happen next, and was surprised to find that he cared.He wanted to know, what Steve would do. 

 

Steve bought the oil, with a flush on his cheeks and a secret smile turning up the corner of his mouth.Bucky shivered again.Anticipation, that’s what it was. 

 

They walked around in the bright Wakandan sunlight, and Steve bought little things for Bucky, just like Barnes would have done, back in the day, if he were wooing a girl. 

 

“Stevie, are you wooing me?” Bucky suddenly asked. 

 

Steve turned red, and blinked, but he didn’t look away.“I guess I am,” he said, “If you don’t mind.” 

 

Bucky turned it over in his head.He didn’t mind, and not from apathy. “I like it,” he said at last, and Steve turned even redder. 

 

“Good,” Steve said and his little smile got bigger. 

 

They walked together, slow and close, all the way back to the palace. 

 

It wasn’t even dinnertime yet, but Steve ordered in a big salad, and Bucky drank his smoothie and accepted the forkfuls Steve offered. The greens were sharp and strong, the dressing was tangy and rich, there were nuts and little shreds of cheese — it was really good. 

 

“That was really good, thank you, Steve,” Bucky said as they finished it off. 

 

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Steve said, his eyes dark. “I was wondering, you know, about the massage oil, if maybe, you want a massage?” 

 

Bucky stared at Steve — his flushed cheeks, his lowered eyelids, his beautiful parted lips. 

 

“Yeah,” Bucky drawled.“Sounds nice.” 

 

“Okay! Okay then. Okay,” Steve said.“Why don’t we go in my bedroom.Or yours!”

 

“Steve,” Bucky said. “I remember, how we used to push our beds together, and sleep huddled up under the covers.Isn’t that right?” 

 

“That’s right, Bucky,” Steve said.“But I don’t want to make you feel like you owe me anything…. “ 

 

“I owe you god damn everything, Stevie,” Bucky said.“Don’t think I don’t know it, how much you threw away with the Accords, on the wrong side of the law for me, on the run… and then, the crazy things you did to get us all back… I owe you everything.” 

 

Steve frowned mightily, licking his lips to get really going. 

 

“Don’t start up,” Bucky said.“I thought I was gonna get a real rose-scented massage from Captain America.” 

 

“Shouldn’t we… start small?” Steve asked. 

 

“Sure,” Bucky said.“But start, at least, instead of yapping.” 

 

“Wanna take off your shirt?” Steve asked. 

 

The scarring around Bucky’s left shoulder had been awful, constantly torn and retorn by the massive Hydra arm.The new arm was much lighter and the socket less invasive.The Princess had done a lot of work to fix the broken white boy her brother’s new colleague had brought to her door.Bucky was in a lot less constant pain thanks to the brilliant Wakandan engineer, his scars no longer so raised and livid. 

 

Steve threw off the coverlet of his bed, while Bucky took his shirt off and lay down, his face turned to the right. 

 

Steve stood beside the bed and opened the oil, letting the delightful scent out into the air. 

 

“I’m going to start off with very light strokes,” Steve said.“Tell me if you want it deeper.” 

 

Bucky snorted, surprising himself.“How deep you wanna put it, Stevie?” 

 

“You know what I mean!” Steve retorted, and Bucky grinned like he hadn’t … since forever.If Strange was right about eternity and the Soul realm, maybe literally forever. 

 

Steve’s hands were always warm now.The super soldier ran several degrees hotter than a normal human, one of the reasons he required a huge load of calories every day. His hands felt great on Bucky’s skin, heavy and hot and strong, gliding smoothly and gently along the tight muscles of Bucky’s back. 

 

It felt good. It felt really good.Bucky couldn’t remember anything ever feeling this good. 

 

“You like it?” Steve asked, very softly. 

 

“Yeah,” Bucky moaned.Honest to god, moaned.Steve’s strong hands wouldn’t hurt.They wouldn’t tear into his body, clawing and shredding.These intrusive thoughts were shoved back by Steve’s careful, loving touch.Hydra had build fear into his body, and Steve was soothing it away. 

 

Bucky was safe.He was really, truly safe. 

 

“Steve,” he moaned. 

 

“Yeah?” and his hands immediately slowed.“You okay?” 

 

“I wanna roll over,” Bucky said. 

 

“Sure,” Steve said, and Bucky rolled over, to face up. 

 

It was really a lot better.His neck wasn’t at that odd angle, he could breathe easier, and best of all, he could look at Steve. 

 

“Okay,” Bucky said. 

 

“What?” Steve said. 

 

“Go ahead,” Bucky suggested.“do some more.” 

 

“Oh,” Steve said.“Okay.” 

 

Steve poured some more oil and his hands and now everything was much more intimate.Steve was soothing his pectoral muscles, his sides and ribs, the tight muscles of his belly.Compared to this, his back felt strangely impersonal. 

 

Bucky could lie there gazing up at Steve.Steve’s hands were angels, ministering to him with fire, life and light. 

 

He felt his right hand rise up, to touch Steve’s face. 

 

“You’re so perfect,” Bucky said. 

 

“Hmph,” Steve scoffed, rubbing. 

 

“Always were, so perfect. Hair like the sun,” Bucky said, and his fingers touched the silky strands, softer than any fine cotton or silk they’d brought home from the markets of Wakanda 

 

“I can’t believe I get to touch you like this.Sure I’m not dead?” Bucky murmured, as Steve continued stroking. 

 

“You’re alive, Bucky, thank God,” Steve said. 

 

Bucky touched Steve’s mouth with a gentle finger. 

 

Steve’s hands stopped moving.Slowly, Steve kissed Bucky’s fingertip, moving his soft lips over the calloused skin. 

 

Slowly Bucky moved his hand closer to his face, luring Steve to his own lips until they were kissing. 

 

Time seemed to stop as Bucky kissed Steve for the first time.How had they waited this long? The time had never been right before now.Too many problems had stood in the way, terrible piles of problems, that had all faded before the golden Wakandan sunrise. 

 

Steve’s trembling lips kissed Bucky and Bucky gained courage, questing out with his tongue, tasting Steve for the very first time.Steve tasted like coffee, and chocolate, and the mango they had shared coming back from the markets. 

 

“True love’s kiss,” Bucky whispered, “bringing me back to life.” 

 

“I love you, Bucky,” Steve rumbled as they kissed. 

 

“I know,” Bucky said, and Steve let out a whine, and Bucky hurried to add, “I love you too” because it was the truth, and always had been. 

 

“I want to bring you to life,” Steve said.“I want to kiss every place you’ve ever been hurt.” 

 

“That’s a lotta places,” Bucky objected. “I mean, just go ahead.Everywhere.”

 

So Steve went ahead.He kissed and licked and worshiped Bucky’s body.Bucky flashed back, to tortures he had suffered, the times Hydra cracked open his sternum to watch spikes pierce his lungs or his heart…. he lived on, and Steve kissed it better somehow. 

 

Steve wasn’t magic.It wasn’t his mouth or his warm hands that made Bucky feel better.It was Steve’s love and care.The soft golden hair floated over Bucky like a blessing.The hands soothed away every stress.The pus and gore that had poured out of Bucky, so many times, seemed to melt away as Steve licked him over, tasting him and moaning with delight. 

 

Steve moved down his torso, delving his tongue into Bucky’s navel and lightly holding onto his hips. 

 

“Bucky, can I?” Steve asked, tugging at the drawstring of his soft Wakandan pants. 

 

“Yes,” Bucky begged.He was so used to begging, no, no, that his happy moan of yes, was like a diamond glinting between his teeth. 

 

Steve pulled the string, and worked his pants off, and Bucky was naked, there where they hurt him worst of all, routinely, obscenely, like gelding livestock. 

 

“Bucky,” Steve breathed, and his voice was like heaven, like prayers of gratitude where only desperation had sung before. 

 

Steve’s soft lips touched his dick, and then his tongue, and it was amazing, hot and wet, and better than Bucky had ever dreamed.Steve’s strong hands caressed his balls, rolling them gently, and nothing had ever felt better. 

 

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” Bucky chanted, every cry a hallelujah, praise to the one who had pulled him out of hell, out of purgatory, limbo, back into life, a heaven on earth. 

 

Steve’s mouth closed around him, tight; his tongue undulated along Bucky’s length, and Steve sucked him in so deep, pulled him out, and sucked him back in.Every second was eternity, and it was all so good. 

 

Steve’s hands pressed behind his balls, deep and right, and it sent a flood of pleasure up his spine, and his hips tried to jump, but Steve just rode it out, kissing Bucky, moaning around Bucky’s dick, like he’d never wanted anything else out of life. 

 

Bucky put his hand in Steve’s soft hair, and traced the line of that stubborn jaw, and it was too good.He came, yelling Steve’s name, and that moment of golden fire stretched out forever. 

 

Bucky fell back, and Steve knelt up, pulled at himself a couple times, and came in hot spurts all over Bucky’s belly.Bucky remembered the knives of Hydra, stabbing him cold, impossible to avoid — and it wasn’t less real, it didn’t mean that it never happened — 

 

but it was over.Really over.And Steve was right there, panting over Bucky, falling along his left side (the side with no arm), kissing his neck, and washing him clean with hot tears. 

 

Bucky was alive, and he had Steve, and for the first time in a long time, Bucky felt good. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is in continuity with my other post Infinity War story, [Walking through Infinity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16301879), but neither story depends on the other to be understood.


End file.
